Continued thanks to Linda Hill who sponsors this lovely stream of consciousness every week. Every Friday she provides a new word to spark our minds into action.
Check out Linda’s blog if you want to join in – check out the rules and the contribution of other bloggers. This week, the prompt is:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “contains ‘igh.’” Find a word that contains the letters “igh” in that order and use it in your post. Enjoy!
As many of you know, I grew up in the country. Everyone was seen as equal, having come from ancestors who carved out this little valley and made it a community. Everyone worked hard. Everyone who was able had a garden and preserved the harvest for the coming winter. Everything from grape jelly, to tomato juice, to pickles to canned vegetables and stored potatoes were stored for consumption later in the year.
There was no putting on airs or keeping up with the Joneses. Everyone was pretty much equal. Every once in a while though, a visitor or distant relative would arrive that dressed all fancy and had a certain way of talkin’. Sometimes they even drove a fancy car. We called those people highfalutin’.
Thinking back, this word was very common in our vernacular. It became a way to throw shade on someone who tried to act better than they were. “Sarah sure does think she’s all highfalutin’ with that new dress. You know that didn’t come from around here.”
In our family, we often teased each other with the word. “You curled your hair! Don’t you look all highfalutin’!”
We moved to Ohio the summer before I started sixth grade. We were the odd family out with our southern accents and our country cooking. We learned quickly what set us apart also made us special. People in our neighborhood loved my mother’s cooking. Fried chicken, homemade biscuits and cornbread with milk gravy – no one ever refused an invitation to eat at our house.
I never realized the gradual change in myself and my family. Inside we were all the same, but the environment changed the way we spoke and the way we dressed. We were still very much common people but we adapted to our surroundings.
I recall one summer in particular when we went home to see my grandparents. I ran into one of my childhood friends and she told me I didn’t talk the same anymore.
After I married and had children, and brought them home to see my parents, they were always a sight to see to their cousins, just as my cousins from New Jersey had been for me. We had morphed into the family that spoke in fifty-dollar words and dressed fancy. We had become highfalutin’.
Maybe that’s why I identify with this K.T. Oslin song so much.
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